#15: an unskippable part of content creation

how to create an outline

Welcome to contentfolksā€”a fortnightly newsletterĀ with short lessons & ideas about content that makes a difference, sparks action, and truly serves its audience. Thank you for being here!


Hey šŸ‘‹

Previously, on content folks: a published blog post is like the tip of an icebergā€”under its visible part thereā€™s an enormous amount of stuff that is hard to see and, therefore, easy to ignore.

blog post iceberg

ā€¦but I think itā€™s useful to document the full iceberg experience! So Iā€™m using multiple issues of this contentfolks newsletter to take you behind the scenes of a blog post Iā€™ve been working on.

Last time, we looked at the research process you need to build a content brief that covers a pieceā€™s ideal audience, its main angle, and your goals for creating it. But while a brief tells you WHAT your piece will cover and WHY, it doesnā€™t tell you HOWā€”and thatā€™s what the outline is for.


What an outline looks like

An outline is the foundation of a content piece, signposting how your argument will unfold. At its most basic itā€™s an ordered list of headings and sub-headings, while more in-depth outlines might include summaries and/or additional detail.

outline example
A basic content outline with simple H2 and H3 headings

Regardless of its format, an outline is an unskippable part of content creation.***
It helps structure your thoughts and research, and plan out and sequence the information your piece will include.

***as a young marketer, I thought only the most uninspired and uncreative of writers needed outlines, while truly great creators (read: me) were able to free-write their way into excellence every time. Cue me wasting months feeling all Emo Romantic Writer, staring at blank pages or struggling to figure out where my meandering prose was going šŸ¤¦ā€ā™€ļø Donā€™t be like old me. Nowadays, I rarely do anything without an outlineā€”even this newsletter started as a short list of things I wanted you to know.


šŸ’” A practical example šŸ’”

Back to the blog post Iā€™ve been working onā€”a piece about content calendars forĀ Ahrefsā€™ blog.

While researching the brief, I scribbled down notes in a Google doc. Here is the easy, 4-step process I followed:

  1. Read top-ranking articles about the topic to understand the most frequent points they make
  2. Review Googleā€™s ā€œPeople also askā€ box to find the most commonly asked questions about it
  3. Watch YouTube videos to see how people think and talk about it
  4. Identify new angles and knowledge gaps your piece could fill

And hereā€™s what some of my notes looked like:

outline notes

The next step in the process was organising all of this info into a logical structure, and thatā€™s where outlining begins.


The most important information comes first

The structure of an outline depends on what you want your piece to accomplish. My article will educate readers about content calendars so I chose the ā€˜inverted pyramidā€™ method, starting from the most important information and adding progressively more detail as the piece unfolds.

inverted pyramid method

Accordingly, my outline starts like this:

outline start

Since Iā€™ll be writing the piece, this is enough detail. When youā€™re outlining for someone else, you may need to flesh out the document a bit moreā€”enough for the writer to know what youā€™re expecting, but leaving ample space for them to contribute ideas and expertise.


Find the best flow for your readers

Sometimes, even with the inverted pyramid method, itā€™s not immediately clear what comes next. Take a look at these two sections: which should come first?

  • I could go wide ā†’ narrow, starting with general examples to paint a picture in the readerā€™s mind before taking them through the concrete steps needed to create a calendar
  • I could go narrow ā†’ wide, explaining how a calendar is built first so the reader has more context to understand the examples that follow

This is where you have to really put yourself in your audienceā€™s shoes and think about what will help them the most and will be easier to digest.

Joshua at Ahrefs thought the first option might prove too overwhelming for somebody new to the topic, and I agreedā€”so I organised the flow accordingly. It always helps to get an editorā€™s take šŸ˜‰

  • I could go wide ā†’ narrow, starting with general examples to paint a picture in the readerā€™s mind before taking them through the concrete steps needed to create a calendar
  • I could go narrow ā†’ wide, explaining how a calendar is built first so the reader has more context to understand the examples that follow

This is where you have to really put yourself in your audienceā€™s shoes and think about what will help them the most and will be easier to digest.

Joshua at Ahrefs thought the first option might prove too overwhelming for somebody new to the topic, and I agreedā€”so I organised the flow accordingly. It always helps to get an editorā€™s take šŸ˜‰


šŸ”„ Pro tip: outlining is not just about figuring out the best way to cover a topic, itā€™s also about identifying where and how to weave a product, service, or company into the narrative.

In my case, most top-ranking articles about calendars donā€™t mention the importance of content strategy ā†’ this is a great opportunity for mine to do something different and tie the concept of calendar to that of strategy while using Ahrefs examples for both:

product led outline

Think about what your audience really needs

Just because a piece is keyword-led, doesnā€™t mean it should only cover what Google or other SEO tools deem relevant. If you have useful information that will help your audience, add it inā€”keyword or no keyword.

For example: no data suggests that people searching for content calendars also want tips, but I bet someone new to the topic would appreciate them anyway. Therefore, I decided to wrap up my outline with a ā€˜final tipsā€™ section:


šŸ”„ Pro tip #1: it helps to have first-hand experience of a topic so you can contribute your own angleā€”but when you donā€™t and/or youā€™d like additional sounding boards, itā€™s useful to reach out to subject matter experts and see if thereā€™s anything they can contribute, like I did here:

slack outreach content
some of the content marketing folks in the Superpath slack group

šŸ”„ Pro tip #2: when you create briefs and outlines for someone else, it helps to talk through your choices before handing over. I usually record a 5-minute Loom video, share my screen, and give a quick summary of what Iā€™m expectingā€”itā€™s helpful to hear someone explain what they have in mindā€¦ plus, it adds a nice human touch šŸ™‚


With both brief and outline done, we have now successfully explored the first two parts of the iceberg āœ…

Take a closer look
at both in this shared doc. Donā€™t let their apparent simplicity deceive you: it took a lot of upfront research, thinking, and work to create themā€¦

ā€¦but itā€™s not as hard a job as having to write the draft itself šŸ˜…

And for that, Iā€™ll see you next time, on April 28.
Ciao for now,

fio